There are many medical circumstances in which an increase in the supply of blood to living tissue is indicated. These include: bums and wound healing, in which the incorporation of angiogenic factors into artificial skin may facilitate the formation of blood vessels in the healing wound and reduce the risk of infection; cardiovascular disease, in which repair of anginal or ischemic cardiac tissue can be effected by causing the ingrowth of new blood vessels; stroke, where increased blood supply to the brain can reduce the risk of transient ischemic attack and/or cerebral arterial deficiency; and peripheral vascular disease, in which blood flow in the extremities is diminished. In each case, it is believed that the growth of new blood vessels will increase the volume of blood circulating through the tissue in question, and correspondingly increase the amount of oxygen and nutrients available to that tissue.
One common cause of decreased blood flow is atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis affects the blood vessels, including those of the heart, and is a major cause of cardiovascular disease, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. This disease may have its beginnings early in life and is first noted as a thickening of the arterial walls. This thickening is an accumulation of fat, fibrin, cellular debris and calcium. The resultant narrowing of the lumen of the afflicted vessel is called stenosis. Stenosis impedes and reduces blood flow. Hypertension and dysfunction of the organ or area of the body that suffers the impaired blood flow can result. As the buildup on the inner wall of a vessel thickens, the vessel wall loses the ability to expand and contract. Also, the vessel loses its viability and becomes weakened and susceptible to bulging, also known as aneurysm. In the presence of hypertension or elevated blood pressure, aneurysms will frequently dissect and ultimately rupture.
Small vessels, such as the arteries that supply blood to the heart, legs, intestines and other areas of the body, are particularly susceptible to atherosclerotic narrowing. When an artery in the leg or intestine is affected, the resultant loss of blood supply to the leg or segment of the intestine may result in gangrene. Atherosclerotic narrowing of one or more of the coronary arteries limits and in some instances prevents blood flow to portions of the heart muscle. Depending upon the severity of the occlusion and its location within the coronary circulation system, pain, cardiac dysfunction or death may result. Because the consequences of blocked arteries are so serious, reliable treatments are highly desirable.
In many instances, it is possible to correct aneurysms and stenosis of major arteries using plastic reconstruction that does not require any synthetic graft or patch materials. In other instances, such as where the disease is extensive and the vessel is no longer reliable, the blocked or weakened portion of the vessel is usually replaced with a graft. In such case, the affected vessel section is transected and removed and a synthetic patch, conduit or graft is sewn into its place. These types of procedures, including coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), are routinely performed for the purpose of alleviating ischemia.
Nevertheless, coronary artery disease alone is responsible for approximately 550,000 deaths each year in the United States. Peripheral vascular disease results in lower limb amputation in about 150,000 patients each year, with a subsequent mortality rate of 40% within two years of amputation. Some of the difficulty in treating arterial occlusion may lie in the fact that each of these surgical procedures is associated with a certain incidence of restenosis and may not be appropriate in certain instances. This is particularly true when the patient is elderly or has undergone a previous CABG or PTCA procedure. Furthermore, in such cases, a less invasive technique would be preferred. In particular, it would be advantageous to be able to stimulate the surrounding tissue to produce for itself new vessels that would compensate for the occluded vessels.
While angiogenic, or “vessel-growing,” factors in general have been the subject of much research, no angiogenic factor has yet been found to be effective for promoting the desired natural bypass effect. Examples of such growth factors are transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), osteonectin or SPARC, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). All of these growth factors are either synthetic, meaning they are manufactured chemically from non-living sources, or are produced by recombinant manufacturing processes. Each of these angiogenic factors comprises only a single protein and possesses only a single functionality. In addition, many of the known angiogenic compounds are exceedingly difficult and/or expensive to manufacture.
Hence, it is desired to provide an effective angiogenic factor that is easy to manufacture from readily available materials, easily administered by the surgeon and effective at stimulating the growth of new blood vessels into the treated tissue.